Percy writes:
I might have mentioned this once or twice in passing in other threads, but one of my long term plans (but hopefully this year) is to introduce a message rating system. The ratings members assign to messages would be roled up into a rating for each member. Sliding below a certain rating level would carry some automatic restrictions.
This is a place where you can learn from the experience of TheologyWeb.
They have two such systems operationing at present.
There are
Pearls (of wisdom). Every user has a certain number of pearls. You can give pearls to another person anytime for any reason; in increments of 1 to 5. This will reduce your own count of pearls, and increase their count. There is thus a natural limit on giving pearls away, since you have to have them in the first place.
Then there are
Reputation points; a very recent innovation. Every user has a certain number of reputation points. You can give a boost to any other post, which is either positive or negative. The actual amount conveyed depends only on the amount of reputation you have at present. There is no change to your own reputation when you boost or detract the reputation of another; and you cannot boost posts from the same person twice without having given reputation to 30 other people in between.
The reputation system is not working as well; and there are plans afoot by the programmers to find a new system in the near future. I personally think pearls are an excellent system; simple, and with natural limits to abuse.
The objective of any such system is to allow the readership some input into an evaluation of posts of other people. Given this, I think it is a mistake to worry too much about the system being abused. Let the people have their say. I'd recommend not using cummulative ratings to impose any effects at all on how a person can use the board; that would only encourage abuse. At the most, you could have some kind of indicator of a rolled up rating level displayed next to the Avatar. You will find that is more than enough to let people place some value on it.
Keep it simple. Just let everyone give a rating from -3 to 3 to every post, if they choose. Then you can look at the rating of a post. A rating can be supplied with a one line comment indicating why a rating is applied; and a list of ratings can be viewed from a button at each post. If different posters have different levels of influence, then the list can also show the comparative influence of raters; and either a raw or scaled sum of ratings.
For the cummulative individual rating, either just give a simple sum; or else allow for a more complex formula if you want to avoid meaningless boosting of one individual without regard to content.
I have a modest proposal...
A person is likely to be contributing substantively when they make a high proportion of posts to a thread; but not too high. Let the
activity level be a simple count of posts by one user which are in a thread where that user contributes less than 30% of the total input. However, let activity also have a natural decay function, with a two month half life; that makes it a measure of recent activity.
Let the
impact of a poster be the logarithm of their activity level. Persons with more activity have more impact; but it gets harder and harder to get more impact as your level increases. One post is still zero impact; impact starts with two posts.
Let the
kudos of a poster be the sum of all ratings received, scaled by impact, and also reduced by a simple exponential decay function, like a that of a radioactive substance; kudos has a half life of two months. A cute tie into a relevant empirical phenomenon, and an encourangement to newbies that the well known experts can't rest on their laurels. Any new poster who maintains activity and garners rating will soon overtake someone who is taking an extended break.
Note that ordinary moderation as it is applied at present gives a natural regulation to such a system. Moderators should avoid actually playing with the rating system directly; though they may be empowered to remove impact from individuals who are rating posts without any regard to content.
Note also that the effect of one poster on others is related to impact and activity; not kudos. This is deliberate; and is intended to reduce the possibility of the system being dominated by one point of view. You want to remain friendly to users from all sides; especially creationists, frankly. So have a system where any poster can hop in and start to contribute, and have an impact as a result.
Cheers -- Sylas
[This message has been edited by Sylas aka cjhs, 02-12-2004]
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